Wiltshire Police Safety Camera Partnership M4

Alex — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:23:26 +0000

Well this can be seen as a highly debatable subject area, and even to me it has many grey areas which I am unsure upon. I finally got my speeding fine through, thanks go out to Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership. After my court case which I plead guilty to by post… 4 points and a £205 fine.

There is some very interesting information at Safespeed and at abd.org.

The story started on the 24 September 2005 when on my way to a friends wedding in Cirencester in Wiltshire. I could even remember the recent M4 protests that were happening recently at the time over the speed cameras on this road.

It started when Wiltshire Safety Camera partnership illegally imposed 5,600 drivers £336,000between them in fines and were made by order of court to refund all the fines given.

Obviously this local company had just lost nearly half a million pounds and had to make it up. But instead of targeting the areas where road injuries and fatalities occur, on local town roads where children and pedestrians are prone to be. They decided to spend the biggest amount of their resources on the M4.

Reasons for this could be the fact that the Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership need local public backing to operate and if they only fined local drivers their backing would sharply drop. So for a quick and easy way to claim back all their money they lost they thought they would target one of the safest roads in Europe the M4.

Anyway enough of the background, whether or not the cameras should be there or not is a matter for the public to decide. The fact of me speeding on the M4 and getting caught by a speed camera is fair and square, however I duly insist that my speeding was not a danger to myself nor other road users and the fact that I honestly believe Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership are there ONLY for revenue generating and not for public safety. If they were there for public safety they wouldnâ€™t be sneaky and use an unmarked van! I was actually following other traffic at the same speed, where the vehicle in front actually instantly slowed down almost causing an accident. So when does a Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership white van with no markings or signage become a road safety deviceâ€¦ I have no idea.

If they want to protect road safety I donâ€™t understand why they donâ€™t use marked vehicles and at least target areas which are accident prone.

Alex's Travel Blog » Wiltshire

Wiltshire Police Safety Camera Partnership M4